Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Dreamliner 1 Update

My source has told me that Dreamliner 1 is close to start landing gear test inside the final assembly plant in Everett. While the airplane is still on its gear, it looks like Boeing is prepping to jack the airplane off its landing gear soon and that would mean that the gear swing tests should start shortly. There are jacks that are positioned under the wings and much of the scaffolding that surrounded the airplane, particularly around the wings is now gone. The aircraft is still not 100% finished. The engine cowl is only on the left engine and there are still a bunch of access panels that need to be reinstalled.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm excited to see the 787 move one step closer to first flight! When they cycle the landing gear, will it be via external hydraulics(as I believe I read somewhere they used for oil-on)? When will LN1 begin to pressurize the hydraulics using its on-board pumps?

Uresh said...

For the landing gear tests they actually use the planes on board hydraulics but they will probably use external electric power and not the plane's APU for electricity (you don't want to be turning on an APU inside an enclosed space). LN 1 has already had it's hydraulics turned on now for some weeks since the end of Farnborough and have tested some of the movable flight surfaces on LN 1 using the activated on board hydraulic system.